Guatemala City, Guatemala - For the first time in history, a former head of state has been found guilty of genocide for crimes committed in the country itself, marking the biggest successful prosecution in Latin America.

When Efrain Rios Montt seized control of the country in a March 1982 coup, it gave way to the bloodiest period of Guatemala's 36-year-civil war. The violence left 200,000 people dead and more than 45,000 disappeared, mostly people of the indigenous Ixil Maya ethnic group, according to the UN.

On Friday, a three-judge panel convicted the former military leader of genocide and crimes against humanity, sentencing him to a total of 80 years in prison. "Genocide not only happened to the Ixil people. It happened to all of Guatemala because it ruined the country's social fabric," Judge Yasmin Barrios said during her ruling.

"This is why this sentence proclaims that such crimes can never happen again."

The courtroom erupted into cheers, tears and song as the sentence was read for more than two hours.

GUATEMALA CITY, March 10 – President Clinton expressed regret today for the U.S. role in Guatemala's 36-year civil war, saying that Washington "was wrong" to have supported Guatemalan security forces in a brutal counterinsurgency campaign that slaughtered thousands of civilians.

Clinton's statements marked the first substantive comment from the administration since an independent commission concluded last month that U.S.-backed security forces committed the vast majority of human rights abuses during the war, including torture, kidnapping and the murder of thousands of rural Mayans...